“They say gas is going up to $3.00,” my friend said to me, “but I haven’t seen it yet.” This was in late August; on August 25th, I had paid $2.49 per gallon in Indianapolis to fill my tank for a trip to see my friend’s new house in southern Indiana. I had pointed out to my friend that 109 miles south of Indy, the gas prices were at $2.79 per gallon. That’s when she made her comment about gas prices rising. I’m not sure which “they” she referred to but gas prices did not rise. By the time I returned to Indianapolis on September 2nd, I found prices as low as $2.19. I filled up again, and when on September 5th, I saw prices as low as $2.12, I topped off my tank. I don’t drive my car often, and rarely very far, so my fill-ups last through several cycles of gas price-bouncing shenanigans.
Gas in tanks at “filling stations,” seems to me to be the least subject to consumer supply and demand. We have locked ourselves into the consumption of gas, made ourselves so dependent on it that the sellers can charge anything they want, anytime they want. If there is an agency regulating the price of gasoline, it does not appear to be for the benefit of the consumer. Someone once told me that gas stations in Indy change the prices on Thursday, after the tankers make their deliveries. I don’t pay much attention to the day that I purchase gas: when I need it, I get it. But I do note the fluctuations, and muse on why they should be so sharp. I remember hearing of a complicated explanation for those fluctuations, and thinking, “That’s a load of bleep.” (A “bleep” is the offspring of a bull and a sheep.)
One theory of the rise and fall of gas prices, and the timing, is that oil companies lower prices in the summer and fall to encourage travel, but raise them in periods of less demand. When department stores are hurting for sales, they lower prices, to encourage consumption. Oil companies do this only in the summer; in winter, they demand premium dollar from the intrepid few that need to stay on the road. When President Dwight David Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which established the interstate system, we were all encouraged to “see the USA in (our) Chevrolet.” The average family income in 1956 was slightly less than $4,500 per year, and gas was selling for 23 cents per gallon. We could saddle up, and ride. In 1969, when gas was 35 cents per gallon, I put 50 cents worth of gas in my 1963 Volkswagen Bug, and rode forever.
When I began this column, I had seen prices as low as $1.93 per gallon, more than a dollar less than my friend’s anticipated price. On Wednesday, September 16th, at about 6 p.m., I left my apartment and drove east on Washington Street, passing stations offering gas for $1.99. At 10 p.m. that same night, I left the pool hall and traveled west on Washington, passing those same stations, whose prices were now at $2.19. Were the stations switching from the so-called “summer blend” to the “fall blend?” And how is it possible that every station along that street got a delivery of the new blend at the same time? I call bu … shenanigans. Gasoline prices may be the product of “voodoo gasonomics,” but until we cut the cord to the wells, we will continue to be subjected to gasoline shenanigans.